Stagecoach 2018: Garth Brooks talks about finally playing the festival

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Garth Brooks, right, and Trisha Yearwood laugh while answering questions from the media during a press conference before Brooks’ headlining set at Stagecoach Country Music Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Sunday, April 29, 2018. (Photo by Matt Masin, Contributing Photographer)

She played it in 2008, the festival’s second year, when it was smaller and more intimate. Now that her husband, Garth Brooks, is headlining the festival’s closing night, the massive country music concert at the Empire Polo Club in Indio has reached its highest attendance ever – 75,000 people, according to Stacy Vee of Goldenvoice, who books Stagecoach.

And Brooks, one of the most famous singers of all-time, said he had some surprises in store for the Stagecoach faithful.

Garth Brooks holds onto his wife Trisha Yearwood’s hand as they begin a press conference before Brooks’ headlining set at Stagecoach Country Music Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Sunday, April 29, 2018. (Photo by Matt Masin, Contributing Photographer)

Trisha Yearwood, left, and Garth Brooks take questions from the media during a press conference before Brooks’ headlining set at Stagecoach Country Music Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Sunday, April 29, 2018. (Photo by Matt Masin, Contributing Photographer)

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Garth Brooks smiles during a press conference before Brooks’ headlining set at Stagecoach Country Music Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Sunday, April 29, 2018. (Photo by Matt Masin, Contributing Photographer)

Stacy Vee, left, of Goldenvoice, gets a hug from Trisha Yearwood after Vee announcing Sunday’s record-breaking attendance during a press conference before Brooks’ headlining set at Stagecoach Country Music Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Sunday, April 29, 2018. (Photo by Matt Masin, Contributing Photographer)

Stacy Vee, left, of Goldenvoice, gets a hug from Garth Brooks after Vee announcing Sunday’s record-breaking attendance during a press conference before Brooks’ headlining set at Stagecoach Country Music Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Sunday, April 29, 2018. (Photo by Matt Masin, Contributing Photographer)

Garth Brooks, right, and Trisha Yearwood laugh while answering questions from the media during a press conference before Brooks’ headlining set at Stagecoach Country Music Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Sunday, April 29, 2018. (Photo by Matt Masin, Contributing Photographer)

“This evening, these people love music so they’re gonna get a dose of it, but they’re gonna get (stuff) they never knew was coming but they’re gonna know it when it hit. That’s what I love,” Brooks said in an interview a couple of hours before his headlining set.

“Yes, we’re gonna play our stuff that we came here to play, but we’re also going to play some other people’s stuff that they know. This will be good.”

Getting Brooks to Stagecoach was a long time coming for Goldenvoice.

In a separate press conference with Yearwood – whom he adorably addressed as Miss Yearwood when referencing her – before their set, he explained that when they retired in 2001 to raise their daughters, that’s when festival culture started to take off.

“The art of the festival is kind of new for me,” he told the group of reporters.

Stagecoach asked every year, Brooks said, but they were busy raising their kids and then went on tour together for three years.

“I promised them the first available chance that I would ever have I’d play here. This is the first available chance,” he told reporters.

He said Yearwood and other acts, such as Saturday night’s headliner Keith Urban, told him it would the best time of his life.

“She’s been telling me for 10 years how cool it is,” he said.

With Brooks’ set, which will also include songs with Yearwood, scheduled for two-and-a-half hours, another question raised in the press conference was if they would be paying any fines tonight if the show went over its curfew.

“We’re law-abiding citizens, so yes, if we go over we will pay in full,” he said with a smile.

Vanessa Franko is the Digital Director of Entertainment for the Southern California News Group. The lure of palm trees and covering pop culture brought her to The Press-Enterprise in Riverside in 2006. Vanessa has reported on everything from the Palm Springs International Film Festival to the MLB All-Star Game as a reporter, photographer, videographer and on-camera personality. She's won awards for her coverage of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and for crime reporting in her home state of Maryland. Vanessa studied multimedia storytelling as a Knight Digital Media Center fellow in Dec. 2011 and has taught college courses in digital journalism. She's seen shows at every major concert venue in Southern California, but most special was when Paul McCartney played the high-desert roadhouse Pappy & Harriet's in Pioneertown for a couple hundred fans in Oct. 2016. Her album collection numbers in the thousands (including a couple hundred on vinyl) and when she isn't hunting for records, she and her husband like to check out the best in Southern California craft beer and watch sports. She also had a cameo in the 1992 Atlanta Braves highlight film, Lightning Strikes Twice!